Ted Lasso S3E1: It's Just Poopeh, Let It Flow

Welcome back to the Dogtrack, Greyhounds! In this episode Marisa, Christian, and Brett have a conversation about Season 3, Episode 1: Smells Like Mean Spirit.

The first episode of season three is a bit of a subdued number that sets the table for the show's brilliant and emotional third act. We chat about our expectations going into season three, where we find our favorite characters at the beginning of this season, and relish the fact that there is so much soccer stuff to nerd out about in this episode and this season.

Additionally, we appreciate how much Hannah Waddingham is filmed eating, note the differences between U.S. and British referential humor, wax philosophical on some Goethe, and share our thoughts on the musical choices and placements in this episode.

And, just as a general rule, you can expect our episodes this season to be a skosh longer than usual. What can we say? The TV show got longer. So did our podcast.

Full show notes and transcript will be available at https://www.tedlassopod.com/ted-lasso-episode-03-01-smells-like-mean-spirit

Richmond Til We Die is a conversation about the Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso, where we explore the characters, their relationships to each other, and how they're able to make us laugh until we can hardly breathe one moment and then feel with the deepest parts of our hearts the next. When you're here, you're a Greyhound!

Episode Transcript

(00:12):
Welcome back to the Dog Track Greyhounds. This is Richmond Til We Die,
an episode by episode conversation about theApple TV Plus show ted Lasso, where
we explore the characters, the relationshipsto each other, and how they're able
to make us laugh until we canhardly breathe one moment to deal with the
deepest parts of our hearts the next. For this episode, our conversation is
all about season three, episode one, titled Smells Like Mean Spirit. It

(00:36):
was written by Leanne Bowen, directedby m J. Delaney, and edited
by AJ Cataline. I'm Marissa,and I was born in Kansas City.
I'm Christian, and I'm trying todecide what my favorite version of Smells Like

(00:57):
Teen Spirit parody is. Is itthe nineteen ninety two weird Al Yankovic version
or is it the twenty eleven Mumpetsversion where they are forcibly shaving Jack Black?
Yes? Wow, I really likethe cover that happens at the beginning

(01:18):
of Marvel's Black Widow. But Idon't know who that's by. But that's
not a parody version. So I'mgonna go a shaving Jack Black because I'm
gonna have to go back and watchthat and you stole my intro because I'm
Brett and I feel stupid and contagiouslyexcited about our return to form. But
first, Christian, what are youwearing? I look super hot today?

(01:38):
Yeah you do. I am wearingthe US men's national team centennial jersey here.
This shirt is from two thirteen,the one hundredth year of the US
Soccer Federation. I like it becauseit's very plain. It's meant to look
old. It's nice and white andnot garish like many of the US national

(02:00):
team kits that Nike releases. Nicethick borders, maybe blue on the sleeves,
and this tight V neck and thenit has an old school looking crest
that US Soccer should have kept,nice thirteen stars and then some stripes.
The reason I'm wearing this is becausethe Conky Calf Nations League just wrapped up.

(02:23):
Yeah, the United States won theConky Calf Nations League. Yeah,
they did, exerting their dominance overboth Mexico and Canada. Boy, and
the Mexico semi final was two hoursof the most glorious chaotic soccer I've ever
seen. I was watching it onUnivision, so is the Spanish commentary,

(02:44):
which is great, always adds alittle extra panash to things. And what
happened was We're getting ready to playthis gigantic match and US Soccer uses that
opportunity to announce that they've named anew manager, like as the game is
starting, My god, who wasit? Well, the funny thing is
it was their old manager. Andthere's just been tons of joba. I'm

(03:07):
not gonna go over here, butjust google it. There's been blackmail and
espionage and impropriety, and this wasprobably one of the last people that anybody
thought was going to get the job. And then blamo, Greg border Halter
gets rehired. And so I knewthat this had happened because I watched Twitter,
but the commentators don't like watch Twitteralways in real time, and so

(03:30):
I'm watching it in the univision.Folks are breaking this news to their audience,
just as then Christian Pulisic gets outon a breakaway and then essentially like
missus a sitter of a goal.So just imagine the Mexican commentators being excited
about breaking the news, the scandalousnews that Greg Halter had been rehired,

(03:52):
and then Christian Pulisic missing a sitterand all of the screaming that ensued.
It was fun times four yellow cardsin this match. Both teams ended with
nine players. One of the fourred cards. Oh yeah, sorry for
red cards. Which is a lotof red cards. It's a lot of
red cards. Weston McKinney had hisjersey ripped and his nipple was hanging out.

(04:14):
It was the best bro best soccernipple since Jamie Tart versus Soup back
in ted Lasso Season one. Ithought you were gonna say something about Janet
Jackson. No, no, no, little little something for everyone in this
match. I like that the creston your shirt. It looks it reminds
me of like vintage era Captain Americashield. It's very like, it's very

(04:36):
old school. It's fun. Idid wear this shirt a couple of days
ago too, because it was Iwent to see Hamilton for the first time
the day that we were playing Canadafor the title, and so the other
US jerseys I have have white dude'snames on the back and that seemed kind
of dumb to wear to Hamilton,and this one has the thirteen star,

(04:56):
so I was like, thirteen colonies. F Yeah, let's go that's it.
How is Hamilton? It was fantasticgood another Rave review. That little
known show still doing well, stillagainst all the odds. I thought about
wearing my US Canada split scarf,but decided against it at the last morning.
I will say, there are notmany other shows that can come to
Wichita, Kansas and have a twoweek residency. So good, good for

(05:20):
you Hamilton, good Joblin. Shouldwe remind our listeners what happened in this
episode? It's been a minute Wemost certainly should. It's been a super
hot minute. Take it away.Christian ted Lasso is returning Henry to his
hometown of Kansas City while staying inLondon to rescue AFC Richmond from the clutches

(05:41):
of relegation. Ted knows that westHam has assembled a squad even more powerful
than his plucky club, which mightvery well spell certain doom for the small
band of Greyhounds struggling to attain freedomin the Premier League. While Ted seems
to be doubting himself at least asmuch as every pundit and basement blogger doubts
Richmond's chances, he still finds away to make the most of a poope

(06:02):
situation by getting the team off thetraining pitch for an informative field trip in
an effort to flush their bad vibes. Rebecca is less than pleased in what
she interprets as a lack of focusand intensity from Ted. Granted, her
judgment is severely clouded as she's lettingRupert live rent free in her head,
which is not only unhealthy but alsosuper dumb because he could totally afford the

(06:25):
rent. Q Nate and well he'son the other side, but is the
grass really greener? Rupert seems fun, but he remains to be seen whether
there's more to life than fancy thronerooms and fast cars. Phoebe is back
and in her old age, isspitting deep wisdom. She's so wise like

(06:46):
a regular sized Yoda. Roy andKeiley would do well to consult her on
their relationship woes, but something tellsus they're going to have to work things
out on their own. And thatis all the recap we are going to
give you. We're back. Ted'sback, the Greyhounds are back. Leading

(07:08):
up to this episode, what feelingsdid the two of you have? If
you will recall there was a longwait between the end of season two and
the beginning of season three. Yeah, so long that some on this podcast
said they might not continue to watchthe show anymore. I won't name names,

(07:28):
but I think the overwhelming feeling thatI had coming into season three was
just excitement, like really an anticipation, and not in a negative way,
but really just wanting to see wherethis journey would take us. I think
that they're even after two relatively shortseasons, like I mean, they're average
seasons for TV now, but havingtwenty two episodes total, I had great

(07:53):
faith in the creative team and thewriters and the technical team to really pull
it off and land the plane,kind of knowing that this might be the
third and final act of this story, and so I was just excited to
kind of see how they would startoff. What about you, Marissa,
I mean I was looking forward toit, of course. Yeah, it's

(08:13):
hard to wait, and it gotincreasingly more frustrating waiting for it. But
yeah, no, I agree,I had faith in it. But I
think I was most looking forward toredemption for certain people in certain characters,
and just because not only like theprincipal characters, but so many of the
supporting characters have like grown in thereI feel like their fan base and appreciation

(08:37):
throughout the show, so I feellike they had to do a lot of
work to tie up so many likestorylines and characters and really kind of,
I don't know, let us saygoodbye to them in like a fun and
healthy way. And so that's,you know, as we were going into
it, that's kind of what Iwas hoping would happen. What about you,
Christian, I was feeling zen verytrust the process. The sad part

(09:03):
was that once the season started,and that meant the season was going to
end, and then also that meant, you know, our podcast was probably
going to end because this is mostlikely the third in final season of ted
Lasso, and then there's only somuch that you can talk about when there's
no new material. So I wasa bit conflicted in that the long period

(09:24):
of time in between the two seasonsdid extend the life of the online ted
Lasso community and this thing that weget to do, and all of that
has been very fun. So therewas some sadness and some sentimentality, but
then also the excitement to see whatthey were going to do with all of

(09:46):
this that they had set up,and there was a long time in between,
but I always chocked that up to, well, one, the world
realizes how cool all the people arethat work on the show now, so
they were doing a lot of otherjobs and a lot of other projects at
the same time, but also thatthey were taking the time to get the
result that they wanted, and soI, just like you, knew that

(10:07):
we weren't going to get anything thatwas rushed, and everything was going to
be thought out and executed to thebest of their abilities. In my opinion,
the intentionality paid off. One ofthe things that I noticed from the
very beginning was we were getting alot of head fakes in this episode.
They're toying with us a bit,trying to psych us out. And then

(10:28):
the other thing was there were justa lot of deep cut callbacks, and
then we would find later things thatthey were setting up for later in the
season. And so there was somesolace in seeing from the beginning, Oh
good, they're being really smart aboutthis. Now I really can't wait to
see what happens. It's interesting tolike sort of get so swept up in

(10:52):
a show, I mean, theway especially we did by starting this podcast
and being involved, like you said, with sort of all of the ted
last, so fandom on the internet. But it's interesting to me, like
doing that when you can interact withother fans but also people who create things
like that was never a thing thatwe did watching shows growing up, you

(11:16):
know, Like I remember, wellthere was no Internet. Well yes,
exactly, but I remember Brett's tooyoung. But I remember getting like the
TV guide in like the aisle ofthe grocery store because like I wanted to
know what the next like episode ofwhatever I was watching was going to be
about, right, or that Iwas going to miss it because I had
some rehearsal that night or whatever.But it like the fact that we kind

(11:39):
of get these insights to like whatwe're about to receive from them creatively is
I don't know, It seems likeyou kind of get to peel back like
the curtain a little bit and havesome sort of idea of like they're doing
this not just for the show orfor like their own creative purposes, but
because they want to honor the fanstoo. As much as this episode did

(12:01):
overall kind of feel very much likea set up episode, Like there's a
lot of table setting. Yeah,and we'll get into that, but it
still felt like good to be backwith these characters, and it felt like
we kind of knew where we weregoing from the first scene. I feel
like at least of course was set. You know, it felt like we
had a direction. So I feltgood about like, Okay, I feel

(12:24):
like we have a thesis statement andwe can like expound on it. You
know, speaking of table setting,where are you still team captions? When
you watch television always being team captions? Led me to notice something, and
that is that the credits for tedlLasso, the opening credits have gotten incredibly
long. Yeah, because it shiftsthe captions. They go to the top

(12:48):
and the side, the top andthe sides, and sometimes it covers people's
heads and whatnot. And what Irealized is the credits were so long is
because, very kindly and rightfully,everybody who was with the show essentially from
the beginning got promotions. So peoplewho were credited as writers in the first
season are now have producer roles invarious roles, which means, you know,

(13:11):
they got more money and a lotof the great things that come with
getting a promotion. But I wentback and I timed it when I was
rewatching this, and we do notget to a regular caption position until like
six minutes into this episode, whichis a little bonkers when you consider the
first episodes of ted Lasso were onlytwenty four minutes long, and so it

(13:33):
like it doesn't quite feel as longwhen with these longer episodes. But hey,
six minutes. I'm glad everybody's gettingtheir shout outs. I'm glad everybody's
getting their paychecks. It's nice toknow that the vibe that we pick up
on of these people looking out foreach other and loving each other does seem
to also play out in real life. Yeah. You know something else that

(13:56):
I noticed, just speaking of estheticsand things like that, is that in
this episode there is a lot ofiPhone dinging ing ing. Yeah. Yeah,
these people need to get a vibratesetting. Yeah for real, like
Apple got to get that money.Girl. It's you know what else happens

(14:16):
in this episode? What's that?And also in this season that I think
we should like make sure that wekeep track of for the fans. Tell
me, Rebecca is seen eating alot in this season, and I just
want to say, go girl,because you know, she's a queen.
But like one of the most famousactors in America is like known for eating

(14:39):
movies. You know who that is, Yeah, Brad Pitt. It's like
in his contracts, isn't it.Yeah, Like did you know that when
heat is amazing jaw line? Yeah, And I mean like Hannah watting him,
Like, let's just say hers iseven better. When Brad Pitt eats
two hundred plus calories in a film, the film earns one hundred and forty

(15:01):
three plus million. If he eatsless than two hundred calories, his movie
earns only one hundred and ten million, and if he doesn't eat at all,
it's like sixty eight million. SoI'm just saying maybe this has to
do with like also like the peoplemaking the money for season three years effect,
the Brad pit effect is now weneed to follow this for Rebecca this

(15:24):
season. So I think we shouldbe tracking all the yummy things that she
does. Yeah, because we've seenher like consuming biscuits quite a bit simple
seasons child, but like she startsoff like eating a nice like gourmet salad
like in this season. So we'regonna We're just gonna put a pin in
that and track it throughout this seasonbecause it matters, it does, and

(15:46):
we want to recognize and empower thatNTV she eats in Kiley's office, and
I believe the two of you werevery excited by other Keile's office developments that
happen this season. Oh my gosh, one of my absolute favorite actresses is
Katie Wicks, and she shows upas Barbara the CFO, which Keily has

(16:11):
no idea. Why does she callher the flying object Corporate Flying objects flying
abjects? Yes, we love KatieWicks. There will be a Katie Wicks
appreciation moment in every episode that Barbaraappears in because she's also in one of
our favorite shows where she was inGhosts, the BBC version, and we

(16:34):
love her work and was such apleasant surprise to see her walk in and
be a little bit disrespectful to keilely. But you know, we'll see where
it goes. So season three startsus off with like helping us to remember
what it was like to start thewhole series. Right, there's a lot

(16:55):
of things that feel like what wefelt at the first episode of season one,
right, Yes, in the sensethat a lot of our friends have
regressed to some of their former dysfunctions. So that's neat. Yes, folks,
are being unhealthy in old and familiarways, some of that falling into

(17:18):
some of those old patterns and remindingus that growth and progress is not always
linear, but there are times ofprogress and regress, if that's a word
people use. One example is thevery first scene where we have Ted with
his son Henry, and kind ofhow that whole dynamic is playing out with
Ted communicating with Henry and with Michelleas Henry's preparing to board this fictional flight

(17:44):
from London to Kansas City that doesnot exist. But let's chat a little
bit about like there are other folksI think that fall into this category too,
But what do we think is goingon with Ted here in this moment.
Not a lot that's good. Hedoesn't look good, he doesn't feel
particularly all. They're not bubbly andsnappy, like yeah, ready for the

(18:11):
day. And again we're starting atan airport, right, So like we
see Ted and Season one, youknow, getting on he's on the plane
and he's he's ready, he's energized, he's looking forward to the season,
to what's new to this experience.And here we're at an airport and Ted
is not looking forward to what's happeningnext, like he has this question of

(18:32):
like why is he still here?Like I don't want my son to get
on this plane and like leave meright now. Whereas like the beginning we
were he was going to something.Now it feels like, you know,
his son is leaving from somewhere.So, yes, we have those elements
that are kind of that threat iscarrying us through. But yeah, Ted
doesn't know why he's still here.And it's a question and a critique that

(18:53):
people who watched the show asked afterthe first season, who the heck you
know leaves there? Kid? Unof these circumstances, especially for a venture
that seems speculative or frivolous or ridiculous, And those are clearly thoughts that Ted
is now having, and it ishaving a powerful effect on him. We

(19:17):
talked about Phoebe having some wisdom forUncle Roy, and then we also see
in this episode that it's not justreserved for young Phoebe, but Henry also
has some wisdom for his dad,And as I don't know as conflicted as
Ted feels, Henry seems to understandwhy his dad is there, and he's
like, you came here for areason. You have to try, right

(19:38):
this. He gives them sort ofthis lego figurine of the Premier League club,
right, but really it's it's supposedto be this like this thing that
we're all wanting to happen for Richmondfor the whole series, right, And
so here's Henry like giving it tohim and saying, yeah, Dad,
I know you love me, Iknow you want to be with me,
but you came out here for areason. You don't quit things, and

(20:00):
like, go do it, Godo the dang thing. And I think
it's a really important thing for Tedto hear as he's in this headspace as
well as we'll learn in just afew moments when he's talking to doctor Sharon,
who yeah, doctor Sharon's back,but like he is clearly struggling with
like I know why I came here, but I don't know why I'm still
here. And this reminder from Henry, I think is really important to him

(20:22):
for thinking about like maybe what heneeds to do with the time that he
knows he still has a Richmond,whether that's one season or more or whatever.
This is TBD at this point,but I think it's a good reminder
for him to be like, yeah, you don't just come out like there's
still a job to do, there'sstill very real people that he cares about
in his life and on this clubthat you know, depending on what decision

(20:47):
he ends up making, like hewants to leave this place better than he
found it. So to Ted's credit, he is not allowing all of those
feelings and all that's going on insideof him. He's not like dampening that
by allowing himself to get drug intoother people's nonsense. Right, Rebecca is

(21:07):
back to a really unhealthy place interms of the status that she gives Rupert
in her life and the focus thatshe has on him. And then she
doesn't even she's blind to the focusthat she is putting on him, and
she does try to drag Ted intokind of this proxy war against Rupert,

(21:30):
and Ted's like not having anything todo with that. So he's not trying
to drown out his feelings by gettingin someone else's drama. He can see
pretty clearly that that's nothing he wantsto have anything to do with. Well.
And yes, and even though wesee these characters sort of existing in
these unhealthy familiar areas, we dosee growth because we see Ted not just

(21:52):
staying in this place where he's unhappyor he's conflicted about something and then just
acting like everything is okay. Thefirst thing he does see him do is
talk to doctor Sharon about it,and so we see him sort of like
taking those steps to deal with thesequestions rather than just sort of clossing over
it or hiding it or just shovingit down and trying to be the happy,

(22:15):
positive energy in the room all thetime. And we see that when
he enters the room and they makethe joke about like no witty repperte or
what do they say, no funnyilliteration like rhyming reading or something like that.
Yes, it sets up an oddjuxtaposition in this season because we came

(22:36):
to fall in love with a versionof Ted Lasso that was not a healthy
version of Ted Lasso, And sothen how do we as an audience,
like, what do we feel abouta healthy her version of Ted? And
maybe that's not exactly what we're experiencingnow, but a lot of those things

(22:59):
that we did fall in love with, those have been shipped away because those
were unhealthy. Coping them mechanism,right, and so now, what's what's
our relationship with this guy? WhichI just think is an interesting way to
set up this season because just inreal life, how many times are there
where you get to know someone andthere are parts of their personality that you
actually do enjoy, But then asyou get to know them on a deeper

(23:23):
level, a more intimate level,you start to realize, like, oh,
some of the things I love aboutthis person are also some of the
things that you know this is theresult of a wound, of a hurt,
of something that is causing them painor to go to unhealthy places.
It's not always all bad, butthere are there are times where you can
you can hold those two things inyour mind and be like, I love

(23:44):
this person because they act this wayor they're this type of person, but
I also know that's a result oftrauma or you know, negative behavior,
or you know negative learned behaviors,I guess I should say. And so
that's I just applaud the show forbringing that to us as viewers, sort
of asking us to reconcile with that, like, oh, the things that

(24:04):
were so charming about this man,some of them were a little bit troubling,
and it's good to see him.Like we said before, it's good
to see him doing the work,and I think it sets up a really
fun journey for season three. Someonewe don't see doing any work or has
not changed it at all since seasontwo is Nate. We see him starting

(24:26):
his day at West Ham Right,it's a little bit like when we see
Ted coming into Richmond. But anytimesomeone tries to shut O, anytime someone
tries to talk to Nate, it'slike there's either no response or quick and
like the down doesn't talk to them, or he's rude, and the first

(24:48):
thing he does is open his beautifulApple computer and check on what people are
saying about him online, which is, of course, as we all know,
really healthy. And it's you're right, Like there are so many of
these like negative parallels because in thefirst season of episode one, Ted's kili
as sad about Twitter and he's like, oh, I don't really do Twitter,
you know. And then there's alsothe way they each single out of

(25:10):
player, Like when Ted first singlesout Sam, that might be an episode
two, but that's the be aGoldfish quote that we all love, but
we see the first time we seeNate single out of player, he sends
them to the dumb dumb line.So and then the whole the whole parallelism
with the press conferences too, isjust really brilliant, like that they handle
those things and totally opposite ways,and yet there's a really interesting similarity,

(25:33):
which is that Nate experiences a formof an anxiety attack that's not dissimilar from
what Ted does and his very firstpress conference. We obviously see that manifest
in bigger, more significant ways later, but I thought that was really interesting
that they chose to write it thatway. Yeah, and we also learned
too, as Nate is texting withhis mom at the end of the episode.

(25:57):
Well, I guess we'd all learn, but we just get a reminder
that Nate's relationship with his dad sitsvery close to the source of his insecurities,
and so he can try to coverhim up with whatever he wants,
but even just that text really pierceshim, even if for a second.

(26:22):
Yep, and probably the most dishearteningfor me situation of unhealth is this thing
that we've got going on with Royand Keeley. I kind of thought we
had moved on and things were gettingbetter at the end of season two.
Clearly that is not the case.They are still on very rocky shores and
trying to figure out what their relationshipis. And by the end of this

(26:45):
episode, they have decided to finalizetheir breakup, and the last thing they
have to do is of course tellPhoebe, who is the arbiter of their
relationship and the you know, thisconstant between both of them because she looks
up to Keeley and Roy in differentways so much so that's a very cute
but also sad scene that was reallywell written, I thought, and I

(27:07):
agree with you be a little bit. I think they're both being a little
bit stupid, But we'll see whathappens. I do appreciate that it seems
like it's coming from a place ofwanting to honor each other's journey and kind
of grow continue to grow in health. But I don't know, Man's it
feels really continuous. Yeah, Idon't know. It's hard to be figuring

(27:30):
stuff out alone. So we'll see. We'll see how it works out.
You know what else feels strange,but somehow right is that Jamie tart is
like the most focused and like hasjust this positive outlook and like, I
don't know, just like a leadershipabout him in the locker room for people

(27:55):
and he's just like, everyone,get your lives together. We're gonna do
this. Like where did full philosopherJamie come from? Because I don't know.
I'd read his book, The PhilosopherKing is what he is, and
I love him. The transformation thatJamie Tart has undergone already in this show
is fascinating and incredible, and evenin even in the context of this one

(28:18):
episode, we go from him sortof having his very almost sort of faux
arrogant quoe where he says like,you know, if we're together, we're
not going to get relegated because togetherwe got me, you know, and
it's like, oh, there's there'sclassic Jamie, like he's still in there
there way. But then by theend of the episode, once we've gone

(28:38):
down into the sewer and come back, you know, Jamie is the first
as the team starts to devolve intothis like, okayn't believe what they said
about us. I can't believe this, you know, everyone's talking about us.
He's like it's just boope, youknow, and Ted and Beard are
kind of like, okay, jyeah, I got it. He's he's
taking on a little bit more ofa leadership role in understanding like as he's

(29:00):
being one of eleven, like howhe continued to how he can continue to
be a leader on a team whilealso being a member of that team.
And that's It's a development that Iam very excited to talk about as it
happens this season. I appreciate thatthey did not make Jamie less stylish,

(29:21):
as they gave him more depth.In fact, I thought that his hair
looked a little extra frosted this season, and some of those visual cues that
just remind you who Jamie has beenin the past. It almost seemed like
they cranked the dial up on himjust a little bit to put some distance

(29:41):
between his look and his substance.Yes, I mean Phil downstairs just brilliant,
like for real, he could doso many things, and we get
to see that entire range this season, and I'm thrilled. I completely agree
Jamie style game continue the barking tenuesto raise in this season. But one

(30:03):
area where we've maybe taken a stepback, or at least a sidestep in
style is the style of soccer thatRichmond are going to play this season,
which is the old four four two, And man, does this season really
like take us to soccer one onone school and it's glorious. This is
a show that people who have notwatched soccer could still enjoy and appreciate.

(30:26):
And since this show's debut, therehave been a lot of people who have
learned things about the game come toappreciate the game. We've seen folks especially
enjoy starting to follow Wrexham because theirstory has been told in a documentary narrative
style that is compelling and I thinkspeaks to people both in tone and in

(30:49):
substance who enjoy ted Lasso And thisyear it really it's always been a show
with soccer at its core. Thisyear then it really does get pushed even
more to the forefront and there isa lot of teaching of the history and
the philosophy of the game that weget to I personally enjoyed, and we

(31:14):
also get a lot of flexing asthey visit a number of their favorite football
stadia throughout Europe, not just England. And you can really tell, even
more so than the first two seasons, that this is a show that was
created by people who love the sport, even just looking at this one episode

(31:34):
where they take the time to dothose little explanatory commas or just kind of
write in bits about the game thatwe'll speak to those folks who like,
like you said, you can enjoythe show knowing zero about soccer. But
I think for those of us whodo follow the game and have followed the
game for you know, decades ormore, that it feels very it feels

(31:56):
very much like talking to your friendsabout soccer, you know. It feels
like it feels like you could justbe like shooting the breeze about this,
and it's it's a very natural conversation. And I love that they use it
as a device too to kind ofshow some of Ted's growth in the knowledge
he's a head coach of the sport, so he should absolutely no things.
It's still unacceptable. How little heknows, it's still unacceptable. But I

(32:19):
love that, you know, hevery you know, he mentions the four
four two and how he knows whatthat means is for defenders four midfield two
forwards. And there's also the momentwhere in his press conference later in the
episode, he says, well,we got thirty eight chances to prove them
wrong. Whereas in the first episodeof season one someone asked him how many
games in a season and he's like, I don't know off the top of
my head, you know. Sothere's little moments sprinkled throughout where Ted is

(32:42):
showing off his very basic, admittedlybut still knowledge about the game, and
the way they use that as aplot device to also just sort of speak
to those folks who really do lovesoccer and love this show is really fun.
If you follow the cast and crewon social media, you would see
their love for the soccer as seasonthree was in production, and maybe one

(33:02):
of the reasons that season three tooka little longer to get to us was
because they attended so many soccer matches. Did they even work well, not
on Saturday afternoons at two po bestfor sure, And I mean I was
happy for him. You know,if you can waltz into stadiums and have
people welcome you and get access tomeet players and managers, you should absolutely

(33:24):
strike while the iron is hot.And it was fun from a distance to
watch them having fun in places thatbefore they'd probably just enjoyed on TV and
whatnot. Yeah, So, aswe've already mentioned, the title of this
episode is clearly a nod to theNirvana grunge classic Smells Like Teen Spirit.

(33:47):
We've got that in some other songs, but Christian, I think maybe you
had a little something you wanted tosay about Smells Like Teen Spirit. Even
though it's not actually played in thisepisode. Yeah, we don't get to
hear it, but coming through thelyrics, I did find these four lines
that stood out to me. I'mworst at what I do best, and

(34:07):
for this gift, I feel blessed. Our little group has always been and
always will until the end. There'snot a lot in Smells Like Teen Spirit
that has a nice dead lasso vibeto it, but that part of that
verse most certainly that and I thinkone of the like the best and maybe

(34:28):
a little bit unexpected song placements forme in this episode was when we Here
Follow the Leader by Eric b andRock Him, which is from the eighty
seven album of the same name,and this of course plays as we are
reintroduced to Nate now as the headcoach of west Ham United, and it's
supposed to kind of set the table. You know, he's the top dog

(34:49):
now, Yeah, right, Itwas surprising. I rewatch. It made
more sense to me when we seeNate for the first time. I was
tam at the end of season two, we get that Run the Jewels track
Yankee and the Brave, and thebeat to this particular song sounds a lot

(35:12):
like the beat too or Run theJewels song. So for Nate to be
back, for us to be reintroducedto him, for him to be out
London Stadium again with the team,it felt like there was some connective tissue.
And it also reminded me that inseason one we got some biz marquis
and whereas a lot of the hiphop and hip hop references in the show

(35:34):
tend to be more nineties, becauseI would have been of Jason Sidekis like
prime hip hop era, this isbefore that. But if you're gonna pick
someone to shout out and represent rock, him is the person to do it.
When people talk about the greatest lyricistsof all time, he often comes
up in conversation, and he's aperson that stylistically and philosophically informed so much

(35:59):
of what in hip hop in general, but then kind of that golden age
of East Coast hip hop. He'sa big influence on Nas, jay Z,
Biggie Wu Tang. Without him,I don't know that we get all
of that richness. And so itwas just as a matter of the historical
record. I was glad to getsome Eric b and Rick him in this

(36:21):
episode. And it's still a bomb. Yeah, oh yeah, it still
goes. Yes, you will makeyou want to run through a wall.
Yes, and I do appreciate Yeah, yeah, you know, um Nate,
maybe he listens to Eric B andRick him, I don't know,
but he certainly has not adopted theirswire. Brett, how did you feel

(36:43):
when you got to hear some Beyoncein this episode? I was so excited
that we got in this episode theyhave, Brett. I have been waiting
and finally it's here. And Ithink the song Laid shows it's such an
interesting choice. It plays at thecredits. It's like right after we go
to you know, cut to black, or maybe right before that. As
Ted is on the phone with findsout who Henry Jake, who tells him

(37:06):
about Mommy's friend Jake Arma. Unfortunatelyhe is not and so you know,
Ted has this very this look ofconsternation. I'll call it and and constipation.
And that Beyonce rings the alarm andwhich is from two thousand and six

(37:27):
is b Day. This is aninteresting choice only because the controversy surrounding the
release of this song as a singlewas that she had recorded it to sort
of be about jay Z's relationship withRihanna at the time, and there was
this purported love triangle between the threeof them, and so I do think
that in the context of this show, I wouldn't call what's happening with Jake,

(37:49):
Michelle and Ted a love triangle,but there is. It's a dramama.
There is a drama lama and maybethis sense of Ted of like,
hmm, you know, like ringthat a lot of ring ringing ling ling,
So but it's it's a banger,and I'm excited that it was in
there, So I think would sayit just like that too, ring ling,
a ling, ring ling, lingling, And it was a great

(38:16):
callback to I can't remember which episodeoff the top of my head, but
when someone approaches Ted and it's likesomething bad has happening and he's like,
oh, what did jay Z andBeyonce break up or something? No,
it was specifically did Beyonce break upwith jay Z or something? Which I
know because I love to gift thatwhenever I can't. It would have made

(38:37):
me. I got immediately sad justthinking about it, I think, he
says, so, so i' stretgingup some feelings for Ted. And in
addition to the wonderful music placements,we have some other musical references in this
episode to this whole season is justchock full of Broadway y'all way to find

(38:58):
them all. Musical theater is abundanthere, And we get one from Nate
when he starts to like get allawkward and doesn't know what to say and
he starts going into lyrics from TheKing and I yeah, yes. And
there's another one too, yeah,yeah, So the one you're mentioning is
when Nate says getting to know you, getting to know them, getting to

(39:19):
know all about them, which isa very well known song from The King,
and I like, I don't knowhow he thought he was going to
get away with that. But theother one comes early on in the episode
when Ted is talking to Rebecca orHiggins, I think, and he says,
what's the buzz? Tell me what'shappening, which is the title of
a song from Jesus Christ Superstar byAndrew Lloyd Webber. And so already we

(39:43):
see Ted kind of branching out inhis references because up until now it has
been almost exclusively what would be consideredGolden Era, Golden Age musicals. So
moving forward a little bit to JesusChrist a little bit, and yes,
in that timeline we've you know,that's certainly a more It was a more
controversial show in its time than say, King and I Are Oklahoma, which

(40:04):
now may be considered more controversial showsthan Jesus Christ Superstar, but that's for
a different podcast. Another thing thatwas slightly controversial in this episode was Paddington
Bear heyo giving AFC Richmonds zero outof five marmalade sandwiches. What's up with
that? What is up with that? Like, come on, Paddington,
why would you do them dirty likethat? Like not even just like a

(40:28):
sloppy like one marmalade sandwich. Weget some crossing of the streams this season
where the writers demonstrate that perhaps theydo pay attention to the online discourse,
and there's a lot of comparison betweenPaddington Bear and ted Lasso on the Twitter,
and there have been a couple oftimes where the official ted Lasso Twitter

(40:50):
account and the FC Richmond Twitter accounthave replied to or interacted with the Paddington
Bear Twitter accounts, So those onlineworld flirtations between fictitious characters does now spill
into the television. I'm not surewhere we're at here, but we're somewhere.
We're somewhere and the multivers and ifyou don't already follow the Paddington Bear

(41:14):
Twitter account, if you're still onTwitter, it's it's uplifting, it is,
it's it's good Twitter. Yes,we see something similar when Ted is
roasting himself when he says, Ilook like Ned Flanders is doing cosplay as
Ned Flanders, which is probably somebodysomething that somebody said as a put down

(41:35):
to Ted Lasso and Reddit at somepoint in time or whatever, and so
it's nice that he wears that andowns it. Yes, I feel like
that one has been named and I'vemaybe even seen it. But the other
put the other roast he does tohimself that I thought was hilarious, is
I sound like doctor Phil hadn't gonethrough puberty yet? And I was like,
if someone if that was a putdown from someone, I want to
see it because that was funny.He also talks about Carmen San Diego,

(41:59):
which was like my favorite shows asa kid with do it Rockafella roll,
Yes, So I was wondering iflike Henry even knows about who Parma san
Diegoes. However, like Netflix doeshave that new show, so maybe maybe
Henry's like up into that. Butas far as that, I was like,
I don't know if Henry caught that. That seems something that is distinctly

(42:23):
American to a person of ted Lasso'sage. And there are a couple of
times in this episode, especially whereit just struck me man, I bet
it was really fun to work inthe writer's room and for like the the
British people to explain things to theAmericans and the Americans to explain things about

(42:47):
why things were funny. This happenedwhen they mentioned um crying during John Lewis
Christmas commercials, Yes, and Iwas like, oh my gosh, one
of the greatest civil rights leaders ofall times does Christmas commercials and I've never
seen them. I just I feltlike a failure and that there was something

(43:07):
that I've been missing here. Andso I go on the internet and find
out, oh, no, it'slike a department store in England. Yes,
and does these really sentimental, creative, quite awesome Christmas commercial they're good.
Yeah, they're super good. Igot stuck down a rabbit hole watching
a decade worth of them. Butyeah, not John Lewis, the civil

(43:28):
rights leader. I had the samejourney, Christian. I'm so glad that
we share this because I was like, I, how have I never seen
this? Like, if there's anythingthat Twitter should have shown me, it's
John Lewis Christmas commercial. Two ofyour favorite things. Yeah, there were.
In addition to these wonderful pop culturemoments moments that we've mentioned already,
in this episode, there were acouple of good I shouldn't say, very

(43:51):
subtle but very quick casey sports references, one of them being more explicit that
being amos Otis comes in and sayssomething about he does one of his little
rhyming tedisms, and he mentions amosOtis, who is considered one of the
you know, great Kansas City Royalsplayers. George, there's another level below

(44:15):
George Brett names this is definitely inthat correct next level of very revered Kansas
City Royals players. So that waslike a fun like semi deep cut for
folks who are really into Royals baseballYEP. And then the other one was
when Keeley and Rebecca are talking aboutLisa Left Eye Lopez boyfriend's mission. Yeah,

(44:37):
and there was another little English Englishquirkiness there when it happens fast,
but Rebecca talks about left Eye throwingher boyfriend's trainers into the bathtub, not
people, but shoes because they calledsneakers trainers over there. And this is
something that happened in Atlanta when formerKansas City Chiefs player Andre Riisen was dating

(45:01):
Lisa left I Lopez and domestic disputeand she did end up like essentially burning
their house down whoops, because shethrew his sneakers in the bathtub and set
them aflame. It happens, sometimeshappen, burn it all down. Rounding
out our pop culture. The showwent top rope a couple of times on

(45:21):
specific people, and I think thatwe should have a new segment to our
show, Ted Lasso's hit List,because there are sometimes where the writers just
decide to take shots at people,and I generally agree with the shots that
they take. One of them.We get Keiley with the concise into the

(45:42):
point you Joe Rogan, which wasa great call back to the like fuck
you Pierce Morgan from the season twoyes, and you know, amazingly,
it's a sentiment that has aged likefine wine. As in the news very
recently, just this week as we'rerecording, as Joe Rogan has been continuing
to go all anti vacts on peopleand getting actual legitimate scientists harassed at their

(46:07):
homes like he is literally the worstyikes, yeah, and gets the most
money. So that's how things go. Yeah, and that's that's how you
get That's how you get ted takedowns. Yep ye, speaking of people who
are the worst and get the mostmoney. Rupert's dinner fellows his old friends,
the Sacklers, Yes, that herides on there. He takes a

(46:30):
ride on their yachts and sambart,but they're not allowed to come within like
fifty miles off the shore or somethinglike that, because they're the Sacklers,
Like they shouldn't be within fifty milesof anywhere. Yeah. So they were
key in perdue pharma and the riseof oxy and now it's become a total
addiction epidemic, especially in the UnitedStates. And so they are of Juda's

(46:54):
persona on Grana in these parts,but certainly the ilk that Rupert would hang
out, Yeah, it's a yes. So one of the things that we
get from Sharon that helps to kindof, I don't know, set ted
on this more positive outlook on hisjourney is a quote that he says he
really likes from Gruta and its doubtcan only be removed by action, which

(47:20):
they don't directly attribute it to him. Right, the man, Yeah,
the man he I mean he isone of the man's well he is.
For instance, Ralph Waldo Emerson essentiallynamed him one of the men. He
called Gruta one of six representative menin his work by the same name.

(47:40):
He included him with Plato, Swannenburg, Napoleon, Shakespeare, and mom Tang.
This is a guy who he wasjust he was a genius, right,
he was a genius level. Hewas a scientist, He was a
philosopher, He was an artist,poet, playwright, did all the things.
Yeah, he wrote a Faustian playwhich really dovetails with the themes of

(48:05):
ted Lasso. But I found somereally interesting quotes about his religious philosophy that
I felt like set the table fora lot of what we get to see
an experience in this season. Ifound this quote from him, he said,
I have from childhood, the singularhabit of always learning by heart the
beginnings of books and the divisions ofa work, first of the five Books

(48:29):
of Moses, and then of Ovid'smetamorphosis. If an ever busy imagination of
which the tale may bear witness ledme hither and thither, if the metally
of fable and history, mythology,and religion threatened to bewilder me, I
readily fled to those Oriental regions,plunged into the first books of Moses,
and there, amid the scattered shepherdtribes, found myself at once in the

(48:53):
great solitude of the greatest society.But he's a person who who describes his
relationship with the Christian faith as enthusiastic, and he shows enthusiasm for like Jesus
and Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. At one point in time he calls

(49:14):
Christianity the ultimate religion. But thenhe described himself as not anti Christian,
not Unchristian, but most decidedly nonChristian, and at one point in time
listed the symbol of the cross amongfour things that he most disliked. And
his philosophy was so interesting that itgot a breakdown. Not a takedown,

(49:38):
but a breakdown from Nietzsche, whosaid that Gota had a kind of almost
joyous and trusting fatalism that has faiththat only in the totality everything or deems
itself and appears good and justified.And so he was just an interesting dude
that was kind of up with likethe violence of the Christian Church and the

(50:02):
corruption of the Christian Church and hadalmost this like post religious existence during a
very religious time that I think isprobably similar to what Diana Butler bast talked
about when we had a conversation withher about belief between these two seasons.
Yeah, being so influential in Europeanarts, you know, during the Romantic

(50:28):
period, he would have encountered andinfluenced so many other artists, musicians,
you know, poets, deep thinkers, philosophy and so you're he was,
you know, really influential at atime that like esthetics and thinking about what's
beautiful and makes the world better wasso important. And so yeah, you

(50:51):
see from this quote here, youknow, it's it's a simple quote,
doubt can only be removed by action. That he was calling people to action
to make the world more beautiful,more lovely, and yes, as someone
who teaches music and private voice lessons, it's hard to teach a day without
teaching a German leader. That's notthe text has not come from Gruta.

(51:16):
Yeah, so many of them.He wrote some bangers he did. Also,
there was a point in time atwhich he had the largest private collection
of minerals in all of Europe.He had collected over seventeen thousand, eight
hundred rock samples. Who has timeto do that and be a brilliant writer
and reader at the same time.Maybe that's his like hobby, Like you

(51:37):
have barbecue, right, Like thatwas his thing, and he has the
equally admirable hobby of high level geology. Yes, and speaking of barbecue,
we don't. We don't really haveany barbecue right now to speak of.
But we do have some soccer,yes we do. We mentioned London Stadium.

(51:59):
That is an actual stadium that westHam actually plays in in real life,
and it has a bit of afraud history. It was built for
the Olympics in London and then therewas some back and forth as to which
club was actually going to get toplay there, and it turned out that
it did end up being west Ham. And you know, they've kind of

(52:23):
adapted it, but it is alittle bit of a funky stadium when you
look at it on TV because itwasn't actually built for football. It was
built to run track meets and whatnot. And we should shout out all of
the different people that contribute to thisseason looking absolutely like Box Office when it

(52:45):
comes to the soccer scenes, becausethey did go and shoot a decent amount
of footage at all of these stadiumsthat they visit this season. But then
at the same time you have peoplelike Paul Cripps design sets for the show.
He would have done like Rupert's officeand some of those more interior shots,

(53:07):
and then when we see crowd shots, there would have been some people
in the crowd, but then theCGI folks would come along and do some
three D renderings and add people inand so, which they've done a really
nice job putting that all together,Yes, and they continue to during this
season, so we get to seea lot of soccer. We get to
see iconic stadiums, and they tookfield trips to those places, but there

(53:30):
were also people doing things off camerato make it all fit together and work
and just look, oh, justusChristian I appreciate you illuminating us to all
the work that's done to make thesestadiums and these locations come to life.
I appreciate our friend Jan Moss sharingsome really statistically relevant information about clubs that

(53:52):
get promoted into the Premier League gettingus demoted usually immediately within one or two
seasons, about it happens quite often. He is absolutely right, it's the
best in Norwich communities. So Ithink that's a realistic bit. But was
there anything that you noticed that youthought that doesn't pass that doesn't pass the
test? Yeah? They keep showingthe west Ham players training in London Stadium.

(54:16):
They don't train there, There isno dump dumbline in their home pitch.
They instead they train at a muchsmaller facility called Rush Green. So
if you're going looking for a trainingsession, don't go to London Stadium because
you won't get in. But thenalso because the players won't be there practicing.
An interesting choice because they make abig deal about showing us that Richmond

(54:38):
practice at a different place than theyplay. Yeah. Yeah, but I
guess if you're going to get onthat location, you got to showcase it
as much as you can. Sodo what you could do man. All
right, y'all, it is itis that time of the show to share
our favorite quotes from this episode,so we're gonna start with you, Christian.
Would you like to share your favoritequote? This episode and in fact,

(55:00):
this season is a treasure trove ofscatological humor. Yes, My favorite
one from this episode was I didn'tmean to come in here and tinkle on
your toenails, which is what Tedsays to Rebecca and Higgins Win. It's

(55:20):
he comes in all bummed and they'retrying to talk to him, and he
tries to change the subject. It'sinitially an unassuming statement, but my is
the image ever vivid when you stopand think about it for a second.
I tried to look that one upand see if that was a common turn
of phrase, and I think itis not, which, thank the Lord,

(55:40):
because that's like so disgusting and Ialready hate feet, so like the
thought is like so like cringe worthyto me. I hate feet, and
I hate feet that are getting faton. Okay, well then I'm good
because that was My Other favorite onewas the cool where Ted is trying to
make fun of himself in front ofthe press, and one of the things

(56:07):
he says why he's so stupid.The first time I heard y'all talk about
Yorkshire pudding, I thought it wasa fancy word for dog poop, which
is a hilarious quote. Yes,also because I want a Yorkie really badly.
Yeah you do. I don't,Bret, Bret, do you want
to give us a quote? Ido want to give you a quote,

(56:28):
but not a Yorkie. Not aYorkie. Sorry. Like y'all said so
many great choices, I'm gonna gowith my boy Higgins when he sees Rebecca
after she's talked to and consoled Keiley, and he says, why are you
dressed like an oomlout because he seesthe two black marks on Rebecca's you know,

(56:52):
cream colored or pale yellow dress,whatever color it is or And I
just love that they feel so calmto end their viewershow that they can make
a joke about an umlaut and thenit's going to land so good. Would
have been proud. Okay, that'sour show. If you'd like to dive

(57:15):
even deeper into the themes of thisepisode, you can find more Ted Lasso
content in our show notes. You'llfind the links to our extensive notes in
the episode description. You can alsokeep the conversation going on Twitter and Instagram.
Our handle on both is at tedLasso pod. It's a great way
for us to connect with each otherand for y'all to share your insights on
the show. This episode of RichmondTill We Die is brought to you by

(57:38):
Gin and Kerostene Productions. It wasproduced by Me, Marissa, Me Christian
and Me Brett. If you enjoyedthis conversation, please take a moment to
subscribe to Richmond Till We Die onwhatever app you're using to listen to this
episode. If you have access toan Apple device, we'd love it if
you'd head over to the Apple Podcastsapp and give us a quick five star

(57:59):
review. It'll help more people findand hear the show. I'm Brett signing
off for Marissa and Christian. Thanksfor listening. Until next time. Cheers
y'all. It makes me think,you know how people talk about like butts

(58:22):
being like hams. Yeah, everytime someone talks about West Ham, I
just think of like the left sideof someone's